The UCLA softball team’s first tournament of the season last weekend didn’t go so well.
But after rebounding to dominate Nevada and UC Riverside in their last two games, the Bruins will look to carry the newfound burst of momentum into Las Vegas at the Louisville Slugger Desert Classic. No. 9 UCLA (3-3) will play Colorado State and Central Florida today; Oklahoma State and University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Saturday; and Wright State on Sunday.
“We just need to keep on a roll,” senior second baseman Lisa Dodd said. “We need to be consistent.”
The Bruins’ opponents may not look very intimidating on paper. There are no nationally ranked teams among the five they will be playing, and the talent will not be up to the level of the Texas and Texas A&M teams they faced in Arizona last weekend.
But this Bruin team got a wake-up call after losing 13-1 to lightly regarded New Mexico, and nothing is being taken for granted.
“I really want this team to just continue to play our type of ball,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “Not to look ahead, not to look too big, just take it one game at a time from the first pitch to the last pitch.”
With senior third/first-baseman Ashley Herrera out for the season with a torn ACL, the Bruins now have eight active seniors on the roster.
But for a team that started no freshmen at all last season, the Bruins are now starting three freshmen and are planning to keep it that way. Third baseman Julie Burney, first baseman/pitcher Megan Langenfeld and catcher/outfielder Kaila Shull are the three freshman starters. Also, freshman pitcher Whitney Baker, one of the top pitching recruits in the nation, has already seen action in the circle this season and will likely see more as the season goes on.
“There’s been a lot of freshman on the field, and that was a big reason why I brought Ashley into the infield from the outfield ““ for senior leadership,” Inouye-Perez said. “When she went down last weekend, at one point we had freshmen on the corners and on the mound, which is kind of tough, but good talent is flexible.”
BRUINS DOWN TO NO. 9: The three losses that the Bruins recorded over the weekend didn’t have a disastrous effect on their ranking. UCLA, which started off as the preseason No. 3 team, remained in the top 10 in Wednesday’s USA Today NFCA poll as the No. 9 team in the nation.
Moving up dramatically was Texas A&M, which defeated the Bruins last weekend in Arizona. Texas A&M beat UCLA, Arizona and Texas in the first weekend of the season to move up from No. 13 to No. 4.